December 07, 2007

Will the Taxi Driver send me $50-Interesting Social Experiment

Yesterday I was in Redmond and Seattle. At the end of the day I needed to catch a cab from the Edgewater hotel to SeaTac. My flight was at 6:55 and I called for a cab at 5:30. It was raining (big surprise) and the cab driver didn't get there til almost 6 and was dropping off his current passenger

As I rushed to get in the cab the exiting passenger decided to pay his $12 fare with a credit card. That took another 5 minutes and clearly the cab driver seemed stressed. As I got in the cab I noticed that the entire front windshield was completely fogged up. The driver told me he was having a horrible day and that his defogger wasn't working etc etc.

We drove to the airport in a rush with the front windshield COMPLETELY fogged up. It was a bit scary. As we pulled up to the airport about 6:30 I was concerned about making my flight. In my pocket I had the following bills, $10, $5, $100, the meter read $30

As we pulled up to the gate I asked the driver if he could break a $100 bill and he said, " no but I can take a credit card". I reflected on the 5 minutes it took when the previous passenger paid with a credit card. Instead I gave th driver my card, the $100 bill and told him that he could keep $50 but that he needed to mail me back $50.

At first he looked confused but then he seemed to quickly digest what I had offered and in a soft tone looked at me and said, "yeah I can do that".

I got out of the cab, made my flight, and wonder if I will get $50 in the mail.